美国习惯用语：783 like a bull in a china shop - VOA英语教学
783 like a bull in a china shop
你的朋友里面有没有哪种笨手笨脚，经常闯祸的人呢？听上去好像是... like a bull in a china shop. 没错，bull 是公牛的意思；不过，china shop 可不是中国店，这里的china是瓷器的意思。Like a bull in a china shop公牛进了瓷器店。这个习惯用语就是笨手笨脚的意思。我弟弟13岁左右的时候，有一段时间突然长身体，协调能力特别差，经常会撞到东西上，或是把东西打翻。我妈当时就常说他like a bull in a china shop. 不过他现在好多了，不像下面这个人。例句-1：I admit it. I'm clumsy. It seems like a day doesn't go by when I knock into, drop or break something. Really, I try to be careful, but I can't help it. I guess I'm like a bull in a china shop, aren't I?他说：我承认自己确实是笨手笨脚的，好像没有一天不撞上或是打翻什么东西的。我已经很注意了，但就是没办法避免，你说我是不是like a bull in a china shop?在英语里，我们还把这种人叫做Klutz, 刚才那个笨手笨脚的人，就是典型的klutz.******除了说一个人笨手笨脚外，like a bull in a china shop还可以用来指一个人的举止、言谈过于直率，根本不注意是否会冒犯别人。让我们听听下面这个老板是如何形容他的销售代理Jenie的。例句-2：We're about to enter into some d we can't afford any missteps. That's why I don't want Jenie to run the next meeting. I she's like a bull in a china shop. She'll storm in there and upset the client.他说：我们马上就要进入微妙的谈判阶段了，不能出任何差错。这就是为什么我不希望让 Jenie 主持下次的会议。我很了解她鲁莽的个性，她会冲进会议室来，把客户惹翻的。听上去Jenie好像并不是一个善于交际和应酬的人，做销售代理，恐怕不太合适。
Related ArticlesVaughn Palmer: A bull in Christy Clark’s china shop?
Vaughn Palmer: A bull in Christy Clark’s china shop?Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun columnist
Gordon Wilson talks to reporters in 1999 shortly after jumping ship and becoming a cabinet minister in Glen Clark's NDP government, a move that gave him a $109,000 salary. He's changed his political stripes again with his $50,000 post as an LNG pitchman for the government of his former arch-enemy, Premier Christy Clark.John Yanyshyn
/ Vancouver Sun
VICTORIA — When much-travelled politician Gordon Wilson endorsed Christy Clark on the eve of the last election, his statement included a slice of history for those who perhaps recalled him as a cabinet minister in the last New Democratic Party government.“What many people don’t know is that when I was leader of the B.C. Liberal party, Christy Clark was a part of my team (as a staff member),” he proclaimed on a video posted on YouTube. “Now is the time for me to come home and be part of her team.”Yes, the two had apprenticed together at the provincial legislature, with Clark working as a staffer in the Wilson-led official Opposition in the early 1990s.Then came a prolonged and astonishingly bitter breach.Wilson, beset by an internal revolt brought on by his own dubious judgment, lost the leadership to Gordon Campbell.Wilson promptly quit the Liberals in a huff to launch his own party, the Progressive Democratic Alliance, promising a more principled vehicle than the Campbell-led Liberals. Following the 1996 election, he found himself sitting in the legislature as a solo act.Clark, who’d stayed with the Liberals, was elected MLA in that same election and quickly established herself as one of the sharpest-tongued partisans in the Opposition benches.The New Democrats, narrow winners in the 1996 election, soon set their sights on recruiting Wilson to their ranks, he being obviously restless as leader and sole MLA for what looked increasingly like a vanity party.Those doing the courting included the chief of staff to then-premier Glen Clark, a fellow named Adrian Dix. Wilson, ever quick to parade his supposedly superior principles in public, rebuffed the initial overtures, telling reporters: “I just couldn’t live with myself.”Then, in early 1999, he discovered that he could indeed live with himself by switching parties for the second time in six years. He accepting the NDP offer of a post in a cabinet that he’d only recently described as “the same old Glen Clark with a bunch of mannequins,” in exchange for a salary of $109,000 a year and a side agreement that saw him suffocate his infant political party in its crib.The other Clark, Christy, lost no time denouncing the cynicism of the move: “Why is it ... that anybody in British Columbia should believe a single word that this new NDP minister has to say when it takes him about 24 hours to abandon every principle that he claimed he used to stand for when he was on this side of the house?’’Wilson, for his part, fired back that, “I don’t need to take a lesson from that member when it comes to principles.”Later, she blasted him for overspending his ministerial travel expenses. He fired back with “unlike her, I don’t have a broom to travel on.”He published an account of the conspiracy that did him in. She rejected his version of events: “Gordon Wilson had trouble being honest with the Liberals when he was leader of that party and now he’s in the NDP cabinet and, quite frankly, given the fact he has trouble telling the truth, he probably fits right in.”Then the other Clark, Glen, was forced to resign as premier (a tale for another day, if ever there was one). Wilson, barely a year into his tenure as a New Democrat, sought the party leadership, backed by Moe Sihota and other members of the faction that had supported the departed premier Clark.The Liberal Clark offered this non-endorsement: “Gordon Wilson’s greatest weakness is exactly the same problem Glen Clark and (former Social Credit premier) Bill Vander Zalm have. He’s a bull in a china shop who believes the sun sets on his every whim.’’The sun set soon enough. Wilson withdrew from the leadership campaign before the convention vote that picked Ujjal Dosanjh, and went on to lose his seat in the next election along with Dosanjh and most of the rest of the New Democrats.Clark, still on the rise, was appointed minister and deputy premier in the victorious Gordon Campbell government. But four years later she bailed on her political career, returning to the provincial fray only when the leadership opened up in 2010.Then came one of those reminders why, when covering B.C. politics, you should never throw out your files. For as noted above, on the eve of this year’s election, long-gone Wilson returned to the political arena, lining up behind Clark at a time when many members of her own party had their doubts about her ability to win the election.This being a full-service endorsement, Wilson proceeded to blast the man who helped lure him to the other premier Clark’s cabinet table.“Adrian Dix is a leader who doesn’t do well under pressure. He is more comfortable behind the scene and has fed off a taxpayer-funded teat for well over 30 years and is hardwired to believe that the ‘end justifies the means,’ and when under pressure, that’s his default.”There matters stood until Monday of this week, when the Liberals announced via cabinet order that Wilson had been rewarded with an appointment as an advocate on the development of liquefied natural gas. He’ll be paid $50,000 for four months’ work.Back to the taxpayer-funded teat, so to speak, not that a high-minded fellow like himself would ever be motivated by such a consideration.